1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to continuous grilling of food items after they enter the cooker, are advanced intermittently along a U-shaped path of travel and are discharged from the cooker, the grilling taking place on both sides by automatic inversion midway their path.
Apparatus has heretofore been suggested for cooking food as it is moved along a circular cooking platform. Known additionally are automatic, oval cooking grills which turn the articles over to cook each side. Moreover, walking beam conveyors are somewhat commonplace.
However, in the field of continuous grilling of food, the improvements of my instant invention are novel from many important standpoints. I use a movable grid having spaced rods which interleave with the spaced rods of a stationary grid during raising of the food products off the latter and advancing the same along a U-shaped path each time the movable grid is actuated. Walking beams raise and shift two legs of the food-advancing grid whereas a tubular assembly controls the arcuate movement to advance the products from one to the other of the straight legs.
2. Summary of the Invention
The entire operation is effected by use of a single motor which not only actuates the walking beams but the tubular assembly at the inside center of the bight of two grids. Each grid at such bight is divided into a pair of quadrants such that the products are delivered from one quadrant to the other. The travel is upwardly and forwardly during the first half of the trip through the cooker and upwardly and rearwardly during the second half of product travel. Hence, the products must drop from the first to the second sections of the grid arrangements before commencing the return journey.
The quadrants are so arranged that during such dropping the products land upside down, thereby grilling both sides of the products before they emerge from the cooker. Electric cooking elements inside the cooker are spaced above the traveling products. For cleaning purposes the stationary grid is removably carried by the kettle, and the shiftable grid is removably carried by the walking beams and the tube assembly.